The Environmental Future – How Do We Get There From Here?
- Gaylord Nelson
- October 19, 2000
- Forum Papers
- Forum Paper
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Forging and maintaining a sustainable society is The Challenge for this and all generations to come. At this point in history, no nation has managed to evolve into a sustainable society. We are all pursuing a self destructive course of fueling our economies by drawing down our natural capital – that is to say, by degrading our resource base – and counting it on the income side of the ledger. This, obviously, is not a sustainable situation over the long term.
Gaylord Nelson is a former U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, an early environmentalist in the Senate, the originator of the first Earth Day in 1970, and one of the most distinguished names in environmentalism. He is now Counselor to The Wilderness Society. We reprint here, slightly abridged, the text of his statement for the 30th Earth Day. We do so because we believe readers will be interested in the immediate practical steps he proposes to work towards environmental sustainability in the United States: an annual Presidential State of the Environment message; Congressional hearings focused upon the preservation of our national lands and upon U.S. population growth and its leading source, immigration; and finally, public involvement, particularly by the youth of the country.